Samantha Spiro as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! at the Open Air theatre. Photograph: Catherine Ashmore

My abiding image of this musical is of some superannuated Broadway star swanning down a big staircase at around 9.32pm, singing that interminable title song. Timothy Sheader's fresh and likable revival gets round this by casting a relatively young Samantha Spiro as Dolly Levi and by reminding us that there are other numbers worth hearing in this 1964 Jerry Herman score.

Based on a play by Thornton Wilder, it remains an odd show, with two central plot motifs: the determination of the widowed, matchmaking Mrs Levi to marry the wealthy Yonkers merchant, Horace Vandergelder, and the discovery of New York life by the latter's repressed storekeepers. But, since the merchant himself is a chauvinist skinflint, one boggles at Mrs Levi's single-mindedness, and there is something absurd about her arrival at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, where she is treated as if she were a mixture of Helen of Troy and the Empress Josephine rather than simply a valued customer.

However, it is the sub-plot about two young men on the razzle, to borrow the title of a Stoppard play based on this story's Austrian source, that gives the show its charm.

The standout feature of this production is, in fact, Stephen Mear's stunning choreography, and that is seen at its best in Put On Your Sunday Clothes, when the youths from Yonkers lead the ensemble in a wittily simulated trainride to the big city. Mear also cleverly invests the gallop by the scarlet-coated waiters at the Harmonia Gardens with a hint of heel-clicking Prussian militarism.

This takes some of the pressure off Dolly Levi's over-hyped entrance and allows the admirable Spiro to focus instead on conveying a sparky young widow's need for wealthy companionship. Allan Corduner does all he can with the curmudgeonly Horace, and Josefina Gabrielle displays outstanding elegance as a sexually eager milliner. My heart, however, really goes out to the dance ensemble who, on a night of thin drizzle, trod the boards with fearless elan.